Avalon
by Jade and Teresa
Summary: One morning, seven people find their world out of joint and must work together to regain what they had and find if there is anything left to salvage, between themselves and in their future.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Warnings: There might be some swearing.

This is vaguely AU, vaguely canon. It follows the events of the canon universe through HBP, but after that skews into its own world. It is going to seem much more AU than that at first, but stick with it and everything will start to make sense.

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Avalon

Chapter 1

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His eyes opened only halfway. He expected to be greeted by the candlelit chamber he was used to living in and sometimes even sleeping in. It was a cramped little room that he suspected was really supposed to be a closet but all the actual rooms were being used. Rooms needed for strategies, with maps covering every inch of table space and some of the floor; rooms needed for feeding members of the Order, who were forever either going on or coming off duty; and rooms for the wounded, of whom there were far too many.

This is not what he saw.

It was sky. Grey sky. A cloudy, overcast day.

Harry Potter sat up.

Luckily for him, he had been so tired when he laid down to sleep for a few hours that he hadn't bothered to change into pajamas or take off his glasses. (Hermione kept warning him not to do that. "It isn't that you'll break your glasses—it's just that you can't rest properly that way, Harry.")

He couldn't rest properly anyways.

Harry thought for a brief moment that he could be dreaming, but, no, it felt real. It was cold and he wasn't wearing any kind of coat. The wind rustled his already messy black hair. He was sitting up in clean-smelling grass, wet with dew. There was a path near him. And benches.

_I think I'm in a park…_

A groan made him turn. A few feet away from him he saw Ron. The tall, red-haired young man was sprawled out as though he'd passed out where he lay, but was quickly beginning to come to.

"Ron?" Harry's hand slipped into his robes where he felt his fingers slip around his wand. He warned people about this. Voldemort was good at tricks, he could find out weaknesses. Ron might not be Ron. This situation was strange enough to put him on guard already, in any case.

"Harry?" Ron sat up, looking bewildered. "Is that you?"

"Bishop." Harry greeted him.

"Knight." Ron grinned. Although passwords weren't guarantees, it was better than nothing. Plus, someone would have to capture either Harry, Hermione, or Ron to learn the passwords they used only among the three of them. And nothing, not even torture, could induce any of the three to share that information. "Where are we?"

"I don't know." Harry answered truthfully. "I remember going to bed—"

"About time too—you haven't slept in three days, mate." Ron interjected.

"But that's all." Harry finished with a frown. Neither Ron nor Hermione approved of his sleeping habits, but he felt he had to go on without sleep. There was always one more thing that someone needed help with. One more decision to make or report to hear. One more death to mourn.

It had been six months since Lupin died, and Harry still found it difficult without him. He had been an advisor and helped Harry make decisions. Now, at last, the final Marauder was dead.

That loss hadn't helped his already deplorable sleep habits—something that hadn't escaped the keen eye of Hermione Granger. But what good was it? He had been sleeping while Lupin was dying. Would he sleep through the death of Ron? Or Hermione? Or Ginny? (There was a subject he didn't even want to think about right then.) Besides, how many nights had he seen Hermione drinking coffee while bent over books and documents, studying until well after dawn? How many nights had Ron been up planning for their next attack or deciding where they'd have people stationed? How did some of the youngest members of the Order end up in charge in the first place?

"Funny, same here." Ron got up. "Reckon we should get our wands out?"

"Yes." Harry nodded before standing up next to his friend.

"Ron! Harry!" They both turned to see Hermione running towards them. Somehow, and Hermione was the only person they knew who could accomplish looking both worried and relieved at the same time.

"Problem solved." Ron shrugged. "She'll figure this all out and we'll be back at headquarters for tea before you know it. Provided it _is _Hermione."

"But how did we get here?" Harry wondered out loud. Hermione reached them and took a moment to catch her breath before speaking.

"What's going on? Have you seen anything? The last thing I remember was going to sleep, which could mean this is a sort of Dream spell. Or a spell to keep you dreaming by making you think you're already awake so you don't become suspicious—it's very hard magic to do, though. The last case was in 1023 when a wizard wanted to stop this girl he was in love with from getting married, but you have to be able to physically touch the person and there's no way Voldemort could have figured out how to get in! I—!" Ron cut in.

"You've got to say your password!" Ron insisted. Hermione looked slightly annoyed.

"As I was saying, I can't believe that Voldemort would do that if he had access to our bodies. He'd probably just kill us—oh fine, Ron, _rook_—but I haven't got a clue why we'd be dreaming about being in Hyde Park."

"Hyde Park?" Harry cocked his head to one side, looking around a bit more carefully. "Oh! You're right."

"People will be here any minute. We'd better look like Muggles." Ron suggested and they were busy transfiguring their robes into something small to keep in their pockets for several minutes.

"Excuse me." The three jumped as a familiar, dreamy voice spoke. They looked all around but saw no one. "Fire pixies have stuck me in a tree, I'm afraid."

"Luna?" Harry walked over to the closest tree. There she was, Luna Lovegood, her limbs rather tangled in some branches and her hair in her face. "Password?" Harry had already started to climb the tree.

"Marmalade mother." Luna spoke in an efficient tone of voice. Her password came from the time she caught Ron imitating her. Instead of being insulted, she thought up a variation of "My mother is a jar of marmalade."

"Did you just say fire pixies?" Hermione questioned from the ground. "Did you see them?"

"No. I just read a report recently that fire pixies were dropping sleeping witches and wizards in trees to protest against Gringotts." Luna informed them.

"Why would—?" Ron began to ask but Hermione hit him sharply on the back before he could finish.

Harry helped Luna out of the tree and the four assessed the situation, wondering if they should look around the area a bit more, orleave the park and go to headquarters at once.

"I think we're being followed." Ron whispered. "We shouldn't go to HQ."

"Are we really?" Luna's eyes widened.

"Okay, wands at the ready." Harry murmured. "In case it's a Death Eater."

"Wait!" said a scared voice from behind a bush. "It's me, Neville!" And he stood up, leaves tumbling about him, his face white but resolute. "Auntie Enid." The rest of them gave their passwords in return. The ones that Harry, Ron, and Hermione used with other Order members were 'Pensieve', 'Bodric the Bearded', and 'Moste Potente Potions'. "I'm glad I found you guys. I woke up next to Malfoy."

"What?" Harry, Hermione, and Ron gasped together. Luna was rather unconcernedly examining a mole hill at her feet.

"I didn't wake him up." Neville gestured in the direction he had come from. "I couldn't see anyone else, and I remember what you said, Harry, about how it's better to fight in teams of three..." Neville trailed off as the others began striding determinedly in the direction he had pointed. Hermione tugged on Luna's arm so that the odd girl would follow.

Draco Malfoy. A Death Eater.

He was lying on the grass, still asleep. He was older than when they'd last seen him, but then again, they were all older.

"Haven't see him since…the night Dumbledore died." Hermione recalled.

"He's an enemy through and through." Ron drew his wand before glancing at Harry. The dark-haired young man had a strange expression on his face, as though considering something.

_That night…_

_How could I forget?  
_

_He had Dumbledore cornered…he was going to kill him…_

_And then he lowered his wand…_

"Wait." He held up a hand. "Don't do anything to him yet…we still don't know what's going on."

"Yes." Hermione nodded. "We'll question him when he wakes up. The main question is: is there anyone else here?"

"We should search the whole park." Ron put in.

"I don't know." Hermione shook her head. "We don't know how many of us are here, and we didn't all arrive in the same spot. Suppose someone didn't see us and headed to headquarters alone?"

"There are seven of us." Ginny seemed to have materialized from thin air. She looked like she was about to go out on a mission. Her hair was tied back, and she'd rolled up her sleeves. A simple barrette in her hair was actually her transfigured robe.

"How do you know?" Neville asked curiously.

"Ally Seeker Charm." Ginny shrugged. "It's a little short range, but there's only seven of us in Hyde Park."

"Your charm's broken if it included Malfoy." Ron pointed at the still sleeping Malfoy. Ginny frowned at her brother, as if she was offended by the implication that something could be wrong with her magic, but her expression faded into contemplation as to why her spell would have included the blonde-haired young man. Harry noticed she hadn't even bothered to look at him.

Not that he could blame her. That awkward tension still existed because he'd broken up with her at the end of the sixth year. Hermione tried to help, Ron always changed the subject when it surfaced, but there wasn't a way to make it disappear.

"But why are we here?" Ginny questioned them. "I had just gotten off duty. I fell asleep as soon as I found an empty bed."

"Yes…" Hermione carefully considered this. "We were all asleep…"

"I wasn't." A disdainful, annoyed voice announced. They all looked down to see Malfoy, who was looking at them with one eye open, the other one still closed. "If you're done arguing, you may want to ask me about it."

Then Malfoy lazily folded his arms under his head and waited.

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To be continued…


	2. Chapter 2

Avalon

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Chapter 2

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"Well?" Hermione interrupted what seemed to be a silent staring contest between Draco and her other companions. "Are you going to lay there with that superior smirk on your face all day, or are you going to tell us what's happened?"

"Not to mention what _you're _doing here!" Ron tacked on with his fiercest glare.

"Why so suspicious?" Draco's eyes went wide in a poor imitation of innocence. "It's a lovely day, who's to say I wasn't just out for a stroll, minding my own business, lounging in the grass for the feel of cool morning dew on my skin? Not _everyone_ is trying to break in to your smelly old headquarters."

Hermione and Neville gasped, Ginny shot the other girl a look of alarm, and Harry let slip a hushed curse, but Ron was slightly less reserved in his reaction. He grabbed Draco by the collar of his robes and hefted him into a standing position, his face suffusing with blood at once.

"Who sent you? How'd you find us? What was your mission?" The blonde was struggling to escape as Ron gave a sharp shake to emphasize each question, but despite his wiry frame, the war had hardened Ron into a surprisingly strong man, and his close involvement with the leadership of the Order had magnified his paranoia into something that could be dangerous, especially for Draco. "Ginny, grab his wand! He's our prisoner now." Ginny did as he suggested, retrieving the highly polished piece of wood after a brief frisking.

"No need to be so cursory, Weasley." Draco strove for casual tones despite the fact that he was clearly not getting enough air, and he had to be at least a bit concerned about the murderous gleam in Ron's eyes. He winked at Ginny, "Just because your brother's right here watching. Come, I may have another hidden in my trousers. You'd best check a little more firmly to be on the safe side."

"You dirty—" whatever Ron called Draco exactly was drowned out by a shriek of pain from Draco, who had just been thrown bodily against a tree by the angry red-head.

"Calm down, Ron." Hermione had by now completely recovered her poise, and had her own wand trained on Draco's slowly recovering form.

"Yes, he may truly have just been out for a stroll, after all." Luna reasoned. She looked completely unaffected by Draco's presence or by Ron's sudden burst of violence.

"I doubt that." Harry also had his wand aimed at Draco, whose manner had gone from smug to affronted an petulant as he stumbled to his feet, brushing dirt and grass off his robes.

"You could have broken my back, you know." He pouted, continuing to straighten himself. "And these robes are _filthy_!"

"Pity, Malfoy." Ginny rolled her eyes, her own wand on him and his wand stowed safely in her back pocket. "Now explain yourself before we let Ron finish the job."

"I was only _saying_, I'm the only one present with any clue as to what's happened to us." Draco was now attempting to fix his hair, which was currently rather mussed and loaded with bits of natural detritus thanks in part to his encounter with Ron. "I'd like to think you would be a little more genial with me. Your side is _doomed_ if your strategy for gathering intelligence is just Bashing Slytherins."

"If you're through complaining," Hermione prompted him, "We're all waiting for you to explain yourself properly."

"Fine." Draco folded his arms, apparently deciding to wait for a mirror to finish with his hair. "I was just coming to see you all, you know, catch up on old times, see if you fancied a game of Quidditch or a walk in the Forbidden Forest for old times' sake when I felt a horrible sense of being pulled…something like what it feels like to use a Portkey, but more all over my body, instead of just the middle," here he indicated his stomach to elaborate on the sensation of traveling by Portkey, "and everything was completely dark, and I naturally thought I'd been hit by an assassin, or tripped over a magical trigger, or had taken a hit to the head, but then I woke up in just the same place, only with slightly different company." He finished, giving his robes another quick brush with pale hands.

"Yeah…but how did _we_ get here?" Neville wondered aloud.

"Were you coming to attack us?" Ron asked, clearly wanting to be in charge of the interrogation once more. "Who led you here?"

"Aspectus defixus." Hermione tapped her temple with her wand and peered at Draco suspiciously. "Well, there's definitely magical residue on him…some sort of spell, but we all seem to have the same…odd."

"What's she doing now?" Ron asked, annoyed that this interrogation had only led to him throwing Malfoy once and not even really hitting him at all yet.

"Residual magic vision filter. It's good for telling what's been enchanted recently. Especially useful around your brothers." Luna explained in her typical distracted tone.

"Can you tell what happened from that?" Neville asked Hermione, who was now searching the vicinity for clues. Ginny had enchanted her own vision as well and was helping with this.

"This spell only lets you see where the affected areas are, it doesn't differentiate between someone who was hit by a Stunner and a chair that's been transfigured into a cauldron." Hermione answered, distractedly peering around trees and combing the entire area they'd found Draco in for some hint of what was going on. "All I can say is that it happened probably five or six hours ago. Maybe a little more recently. I can guess from how strong the residue is how recently something was enchanted usually, but if you don't know the strength of magic required…it can be a bit dodgy."

"That makes sense, though. It was probably around two in the morning when we were crossing the park." Draco added helpfully, clearly not worried about Ron, Neville, and Harry's wands, which were all still trained on him.

"Are you going to tell us what you were doing, or are you just enjoying the continued sense of mystery?" Harry cut in, annoyed at Draco's sidestepping of Ron's pointed line of questioning.

"Don't ask _me_." Draco replied defensively. "Professor Snape insisted on it. I assured him our villa in France was _perfectly_ secure, and I told him if he thought it would be too obvious, we could _always _go to my father's secret estate in Barbados where he goes when mother's upset with him, but he wouldn't have any of it. He was sure father would help the others track me, which _hardly_ seems reasonable. I mean, I'm his _only_ son, and he's far too old to just have another. He would die before letting anything happen to me. I guess Snape's parents didn't care for him at all, and he just doesn't understand things like this."

"Why would Voldemort be searching for you?" Harry asked. "Didn't he send you to attack us?"

"Honestly, Potter, no wonder your side is doing poorly." Draco shook his head mournfully. "Send one Hogwarts runaway to take on the entire Order of the Phoenix? I mean, I'm sure I'd do well against a few of you, but even fifty completely incompetent bumblers would still have the advantage over one prodigal master of magic. I'm no coward, but I'd have to be an absolutely suicidal idiot to try something so daft."

"So why'd you leave the Death Eaters, then?" Hermione asked, having finished her search without turning anything else up. "Or were you kicked out?"

"I'd rather not talk about it just yet, thank you very much." Draco replied primly, and Hermione gave him a look that indicated she thought he must be joking, but when he said nothing else, Ginny took up the questioning.

"What about your parents? Aren't you worried about what Voldemort will do to them once you've scuttled off?" She pressed him, one eyebrow arching in question.

"Snape told me that as long as they cooperated with the search, they'd be fine, and they wouldn't know to look in your headquarters, as they have no idea where it is." Draco explained, sounding rather more solemn than before.

"What I want to know," Harry started, "is how Snape knew our location. We worked so hard to find somewhere secret after Dumbledore…" he trailed off, almost feeling sorry for Draco when he saw the way his mention of the former headmaster caused all the blood to drain from his face. Clearly his time as a Death Eater had not hardened him to the thought of taking a life. Was the young man before him so different from the terrified boy on the roof? And Harry suddenly knew, looking into those grey-blue eyes and seeing all the doubts and fears showing through in a perfect moment of vulnerability that Draco was no more capable of killing someone now than he'd been that night. And he must have known that the Death Eaters could not value his empathy the way the Order of the Phoenix would.

"Obviously we have a spy." Luna shrugged nonchalantly, as though she'd just announced she'd prefer turkey sandwiches to ham if it wasn't too much trouble. "I wonder who. Or Snape could have a pet spindly thrumdripper. I wish _I _had one."

"What's—" Draco began.

"Don't ask!" Harry, Ginny, and Hermione all exclaimed at the same time, effectively cutting off his query before it could fully form.

"Who could be leaking information?" Ron grumbled. "Did Snape say how he knew where we were?"

"I didn't ask." Draco answered with a slight shrug. "I assumed you all knew he was on your side."

"Yeah, he's quite the asset." Ginny rolled her eyes in exasperation. "We sure got Voldemort upset by having Snape kill Dumbledore."

"I don't know, I figured it was part of some masterfully plotted Gryffindor strategy." Draco shrugged again. "They're usually either simple enough hat I suspect you of having first-year Hufflepuffs strategize for you, or so decidedly ridiculous that I'm quite sure you let Weasley come up with them."

"Malfoy, if you don't watch yourself, I swear—" Ron had clearly been on the verge of attack, but Ginny and Harry had both grabbed him, and Hermione had her wand out once more, ready to stop her friend if he couldn't control himself.

"Ron, please." Hermione put her wand away as the tension left his lanky form, "We aren't in school anymore. We need to be adults."

"Are you suggesting we're just friends now, just like that?" Ron was clearly not about to concede that easily. "He could be here to infiltrate…he could be trying to kill Harry!"

"He's not going to kill anyone." Harry met Ron's gaze steadily, and then turned to meet Draco's eyes as well. It was clear that he was comfortable with leadership, that he put this role on as easily as slipping on his robes. "Are you?"

Draco and Harry stared at each other for an interminable length of time, and it was as though they could see in the other's eyes everything that had happened, everything that had taken place to bring each of them back to this point, and in the end they understood exactly where the other stood. The snarky retort Draco had prepared died on his tongue, and he finally dropped his eyes to stare at his feet. The force of that stare, of the man behind it and the power he held as confidently as if he felt it was his birthright while Draco still struggled to understand what he was meant for and what was meant for him…it shamed him. "No." he answered simply.

"I'm not saying I completely trust him, I think we should just escort him back to the headquarters, and we can decide what to do from there." Harry explained. "We can transfigure his robes into a blindfold so that he's not running around London in wizarding clothes, and also that way he wouldn't be able to locate the entrance on his own later."

"He wants protection. We've never turned someone in need away before." Luna spoke up dreamily and everyone paused to consider this.

"I don't know, I mean, I see what you're saying, but it isn't like we've ever had a Death Eater turn up at our door, either." Neville frowned. "I'm sorry to argue, but Ron's right. He could easily be lying, and even if he doesn't know the way in, once he attacks us and runs off, he'll obviously find it on his way out."

"We'll wait to return his wand, then." Hermione reasoned. "Would that make everyone comfortable?"

"We should bind him." Ron could see they'd be taking Draco back whether he liked it or not, but he was determined not to be duped by the former Slytherin. "He'll run for it otherwise."

"Excuse _me_," Draco interjected. "But Malfoy's do _not_ run away. We exit an unfavorable situation expediently."

"Thanks for clearing that up." Ginny rolled her eyes. "How about just his hands?"

"Yeah, so we don't have to levitate him all over London." Neville nodded. "That would draw way too much attention."

"You should _be_ so lucky." Draco scowled. "Like I'd trust my welfare to _your_ shoddy spellwork." He looked over his options and then shucked his outer robe, transfigured it into a blindfold and handed it to Harry before sticking his hands out to Hermione. "You're probably the only one who knows the proper spell. I'd rather still have _hands_ when we get there. And Potter, don't tie that too tightly. My eyes are perfect as they are, and I could do without crushed lashes."

"Yeah, don't be too rough with Princess Malfoy." Ginny snorted, and Hermione shook her head, flattered despite herself that despite everything, Draco trusted her to simply bind her hands and not do anything worse.

"Conligo." She enunciated clearly, making a looping motion with her wand and leaving a shining rope around his wrists. "Good?" she asked.

"They're a bit tight." He ventured before seeing her expression grow dark, "But they'll do."

"We'll guide you," Harry told him in a soft tone as he fastened the blindfold around Draco's eyes. He couldn't help being oddly touched by the fact that Draco was surrendering his trust to them so completely, but then again, he supposed that from the blonde's point of view, he really had no options in this situation. "Let's go, then." Harry led the way as they crossed the park, all of them walking in a rather snug group around Draco, with Luna holding his arm to stop him stumbling so that to passersby they looked like a group of young adults out for a morning walk, albeit with one of them wearing a blindfold. Luna was doing an embarrassingly convincing job of acting like Draco's girlfriend with a loud, continuous bit of babbling she was improvising.

"And there's a lovely tea shop just two blocks down, dear. I wish you'd take me there and buy me some of the sweet cakes they make." She affected an expression that reminded Harry oddly of Cho during their brief relationship. "But you're probably worried it'll go straight to my thighs. I know you think I'm too fat for you now that I've stopped jogging, but I just hate leaving you alone when I wake up. Maybe if my legs were as nice as Ginny's you'd take me out more often, but I guess you must be ashamed of me now. Maybe if I did something with my hair, you'd finally take me to meet your mother, but I'm sure she'd just disapprove of me anyway."

"Luna, please." Ron rubbed his temples. "That's enough."

"Is that really how girlfriends are?" Neville wanted to know. Ron nodded frantically, causing Ginny to giggle at her brother's clear discomfort with the situation and the unpleasant memories it was doubtless recalling in his mind.

"She sounded just like Lavender used to." He grimaced.

"Whatever happened to her?" Draco asked. "She was rather fetching for a Gryffindor, though she clearly had poor taste…" there was a long silence and Draco frowned behind his blindfold, wondering if he'd missed something. "What?"

"She died." Ginny answered in a suddenly harsh tone. "In a raid four months ago."

"I…didn't know." Draco's skin took on an ashy tint as though he might be sick.

"A lot of people have died already." Harry sounded rather resigned. "A lot more may still go."

"The rest of the walk was in silence, and they all felt a bit relieved as Harry led them down a dank alley. "Wait a second," Ron spoke up as they stepped around a dumpster, "Who's on duty?"

"Yeah, why isn't anyone on guard?" Hermione frowned.

"Fred relieved me," Ginny recalled. "But by now Mundungus should have taken over."

"I _knew_ he was skiving off shifts." Hermione shook her head disapprovingly. "We'll have to have a talk with him."

"Are we there yet?" Draco asked, since they'd been stationary for some time at that point. "Why does it _stink_? I mean, I understand that some of you are used to squalor, but you'd think that by pooling your resources you could have a house elf clean up once in a while." Harry and Hermione exchanged a look, and he untied the blindfold, leaving Draco's hands bound. It would be impossible for him to find this alley again, as it looked just like any other alley. "Where's the door? Which one of these buildings are we—"

"You guys…" Neville's voice seemed to come from nowhere, and Draco was very confused until Luna boosted herself up onto the edge of the dumpster.

"Why's there all this garbage…" she asked, and Draco found it a very odd question until suddenly, the penny dropped.

"You guys live in a _dumpster_?" He shook his head slowly, "Somehow, I'm not surprised."

"It's the entrance, Malfoy." Ginny replied swiftly. "We'll just have to shift it so we can get in." she boosted herself up into the dumpster, and Draco turned to Hermione as he saw Harry and Ron follow suit and begin tossing armfuls of garbage out of the dumpster. Hermione pulled him out of the line of fire.

"I'm _not_ helping." He advised her. "My clothes aren't _that_ ruined."

"Hermione," Ron's voice sounded much like it had when he was twelve, young and unsure. "We're having a problem here…"

"What is it?" she asked as several haggard faces re-emerged from the dumpster's interior.

"It's not here." Harry answered. "This…is just a dumpster." There was a long moment of silence.

"What's…going on? Was there an attack or something while we were gone?" Hermione looked as if she might faint. Ron nearly flew out of the dumpster to her side, and the others followed a bit more carefully. Draco's face twisted in disgust at the smell of the garbage that lingered on them. "I don't understand."

"I'm sure this has something to do with what happened to us. I'm sure everyone woke up nearby and just went to one of the safe houses." Ginny surmised.

"Right," Ron agreed. "We just need to regroup."

"This is what happens when I rely on Gryffindors." Draco lamented as they headed out of the alley.

Three hours later, they were at King's Cross station, suffering from various levels of panic. Two of the houses they had gone to hadn't existed for some reason, and another three had been clearly inhabited by Muggles.

"What is going on?" Hermione was clearly one step away from either a great epiphany or declaring complete defeat to the confusion. She had developed a disturbing habit of muttering obscure spell names and effects under her breath as she tried to figure out some sort of explanation for what was happening. They had attempted to go to Diagon Alley for answers, but had not even been able to find the entrance. Where the Leaky Cauldron had been, there was a normal Muggle sports bar.

"When we get to Hogwarts, we'll be able to figure things out, regroup a bit." Ginny assured the older girl. "There must be something in the library that says…something about things like this."

"Yes…yes, that's right." Hermione strode through the station with them, and when they reached the entrance to Platform 9 ¾, she broke into a brisk trot, ran straight into the barrier, bounced back and cursed so fluently that Ron's eyebrows nearly disappeared under his bangs. "Why…what could be causing this?" she was clearly close to tears. Draco, who had been freed from his bindings somewhere around trying to find Diagon Alley crossed his arms and shook his head at them as though they were all the silliest bunch of children he'd ever seen.

"This doesn't make sense, I'm sure we should be able to—" Luna also ran into the barrier and bounced back, falling on her rear and making a noise as though that had been a rather interesting turn of events. "Well. I suppose that is one more place we can't go. Can someone check my hair for sneakoplasts?"

"You idiots," Draco rolled his eyes. Secretly, he was starting to worry a bit about this. The headquarters and the safe houses he could put down to their general incompetence, but the Diagon Alley search had genuinely worried him, and he had never had any trouble reaching Platform 9 ¾. "You're doing it _wrong_. Let me show you how it's done." He took a few steps back, annoyed that they all seemed to be looking at him with doubt and amusement. He would show them. Breaking into a run, he went straight for the barrier. It wasn't so difficult, they just weren't going towards it fast enough and—

"Wow, well…that almost makes me feel better." Ginny looked down at Draco, who had completely knocked himself out running straight into the very solid barrier. "Ron seems to be in a better mood." She indicated her brother, who was laughing so hard he had tears leaking down the side of his face. Hermione clicked her tongue in irritation and moved to revive Draco, who was very annoyed that the barrier had dared to resist his approach.

"Are we dreaming, and just…stuck in our dream?" Neville asked, sounding very worried. "I mean…Platform nine and three quarters…it can't just get up and move. And Diagon Alley! That's been there since…well, a long time!"

"If this is a dream, it _must_ be a nightmare." Draco was rubbing his head and scowling at everyone as he stood back up, as though daring them to comment on his failed attempt at the barrier, but it was clearly all show, since Ron was still openly laughing. "To be stuck in this ridiculous world with _you_ useless people…living in a dumpster…can't even get onto a train like proper wizards…"

"There was this time that Dobby stopped Ron and I from getting onto Platform nine and three-quarters." Harry told them, and everyone ignored Malfoy's ongoing litany of muttered imprecations against their quality as companions to listen to what he was saying instead. "Maybe that's like what's going on now. We can't enter headquarters, magically concealed houses won't appear for us, and we couldn't enter Diagon Alley _or_ get on the platform."

"Yeah!" Ron had sufficiently recovered now to offer his own thoughts. "Like maybe, okay, a bunch of Death Eaters remote Apparated us out of HQ! And then, they blocked off all the entrances, and what we don't know is we're just one group of magical refugees. He's trying to throw us off so he can start winning the war!"

"He was kind of already winning." Luna pointed out. "A bit."

"Well…but we keep not dying! This is a trick, and _that's _why Malfoy's here! He's planted with us to get rid of us. He'll kill us in our sleep!" Ron explained excitedly. Ginny blinked at him and then let out a sigh before turning to the rest of the group. Draco was still muttering to himself and did not seem at all concerned with Ron's latest theory of how he was planning to kill them all.

"Just because we can't get on the platform doesn't mean we can't get to Hogwarts _or_ Hogsmeade." Ginny told them resolutely. "I don't need the train to find it. Dean showed me where it was when I spent part of the summer with him, and I'm sure I can find it again with no trouble. It may be Unplottable, but if I know where it is, I don't need a map."

They agreed to this course of action, and pooled their resources to buy train tickets, though Draco stubbornly refused to pay for anyone, even though he had a load of Galleons stashed in his robes. "If we're buying Muggle tickets, they'll only take Muggle money." He told them all as though this should have plainly excused him from helping out. "You're the ones carrying those filthy notes around. If I can't get to Diagon Alley, _how_ am I supposed to change out a hundred Galleons?"

"Who _carries_ a hundred Galleons?" Ron shook his head in amazement at Hermione as they headed toward platform 6, where their train would be departing from.

"I think the real question is," Hermione told him softly, not wanting her voice to carry, "who carries that much money but refuses to even buy his own train ticket?"

"We should have just ditched him in the park." Ron grumbled. "Harry's too trusting for his own good." Hermione pursed her lips, not wanting to agree with Ron and encourage the enmity in their small group, but unable to help the misgivings she had toward going anywhere with Draco Malfoy. It was clear he thought of them as his servants or escorts, not as actual equals who were all in the same situation, trying to find a solution together. He seemed to be of the opinion that they should cater to his whims and figure a way out of this all at the same time without troubling his head over it. But…Harry seemed to think it was okay, and she had learned that Harry was an excellent judge of these things. It was one of the reasons he had risen so quickly in responsibility within the Order. Everyone trusted his judgment, and in many things, he was wise beyond his years. She glanced at him trying to casually talk with Ginny and sighed softly to herself.

_Well…he's not always wise. Those two…I can't help but wonder where it will go, if she'll give him another chance or if he wore out his welcome when he broke up with her to protect her. Ginny's not a child, and Harry's forgetting how much he hated when the people he cared about tried to shield him this same way._

"I didn't know Dean lived so near Hogwarts." Neville was walking on the other side of Ginny as they reached the platform and watched the train pull in. With no luggage, boarding was extremely simple.

"We were at his grandparents' place. It's just a few miles from the edge of the grounds. You can see the Forbidden Forest if you stand on the hill just behind their farmhouse. We took a hike to the edge one day, but we didn't go in, since we would have had to cross the forest to reach the school, and that wouldn't have been very relaxed or fun. But we should be able to go around to where the lake and the path to the school are no problem." Ginny explained.

"I didn't know you spent the summer with Dean." Harry attempted to sound neutral and vaguely interested, but he failed miserably.

"It was just a couple weeks." Ginny coughed uncomfortably, and Ron turned to Hermione as they all filed down the aisle looking for an empty compartment, waiting for her to change the subject, but she had been getting gradually more silent and distracted since the failed return to headquarters. It was clear to Ron that it was going to be up to him to save things before they became messy.

"So," he smiled brightly at them all, "won't it be nice to visit Hogwarts? It's changed a lot since we were there."

"Yeah," Hermione spoke up, "Everyone's dead."

"Well," Luna spoke up after an even more awkward silence, "we're not dead. Not everyone's dead. And the ghosts were already dead."

"Oh no, no," Draco spoke as they opened the door to a compartment and began filing in, Ron pushing him forward when he started to dig his heels in. "Are we _all_ going to be in this _tiny_ compartment? Because I have trouble breathing in restricted spaces." He looked around critically. "And you _all_ smell like garbage."

"That's what happens when you have to climb in a dumpster, idiot." Ginny snapped at him. Ron figured that since she hadn't attacked anyone he liked, he had succeeded in avoiding a scene.

"Don't snap at me." Draco snorted. "I'm not the one who decided the entrance should be hidden in a _dumpster_. Ugh."

"When we get there, I'm going to the library." Hermione sounded a bit more like her old self as the familiar countryside began to roll past the windows. "Harry, Ron, you should go see Professor Flitwick, he can usually think of any sort of spell to explain any effect."

"Okay," Ron agreed readily, glad she seemed to be coming to grips with the horror of not immediately knowing the answer. Maybe going back to school was lifting her spirits.

"If only McGonagall were still around," Ginny sighed heavily. "She was easily the most knowledgeable person in Hogwarts next to Dumbledore."

"What about Snape?" Draco spoke in defense of his own favorite. "Just because he didn't fawn over Potter doesn't mean he didn't know anything."

"Well, he was tops in potions, I'll admit." Hermione shrugged grudgingly, "But it would be quite something if all this were caused by a potion."

"He knows other things, too." Draco pouted before turning to his window to watch silently as they crossed the countryside approaching their destination.

Several hours later, tired and footsore, the group rose over a crest before relief broke over them for the first time that day. The sun was low, but stretching out before them they could see the lake, the forest, and rising above it all, the familiar towers of Hogwarts.

"Finally," Hermione laughed breathlessly at the sight. "Something's gone right, after all."

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To be continued…


End file.
